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I think an interesting twist would be the 3rd hokage in that coffin. With this situation you could rationalize why madara would call kabuto a madman. Imagine how pissed off the leaf would be if Madara were using the 3rds powers against the shinobi alliance. He was nicknamed the professor, and the god of shinobi..mastered thousands of jutsus including every jutsu in the leaf, took on and edo tensei'd 1st and 2nd and held his own in his old age. He would be a serious setback to the shinobi alliance if his soul was edo tensei'd.

A lot of people are speculating it's Madara's body, but that'd be kind of lame if now Tobi isn't who he revealed himself to be, or who Minato, Kisame, and Zetsu have revealed him to be for that matter. So if it is Madara's body, then who is Tobi if he is not Madara? And if he is Madara, then it seems Madara was capable of separating his soul from his body maybe before death. Maybe by creating or using an incomplete version of Orochimaru's soul transfer technique.

With all this new buzz around Edo tensei, maybe that is a clue to Madara's existence. When Orochimaru used Edo tensei, the first and the second hokage seemed like they were capable of free will until Orochimaru used the seal to make them his tools. Maybe someone Edo Tensei'd Madara and once Madara was brought back he used his space/time jutsu to get out of the place he was summoned. That would be lulz. I can imagine the summoner thinking "that didn't work out as I planned"

It sure looks like that, but I gotta disagree. If it is Madara who was summoned then Tobi isnt Madara but someone else, an uchiha we havent seen so far. Thats bcs Edo Tensei uses sacrifical body to summon a soul of dead into it. If Madara is Tobi then his soul is still alive and thus cant be summoned in the sacrifical body.

Well, it may be Izuna who is hiding as Tobi but I doubt that - I believe the Databook on this one, which states that Izuna is dead.

Anyway, I would like it to be Rikudou Sennin. That would not just explain why Madara called Kabuto Maddman and then shit his pants but that would also make some memorable battles in the future. Just imagine Naruto vs Rikudou. Then when Naruto manages to defeat him and is about to send his soul for his final rest, Rikudou will give him some charismatic speech how to bring peace and enlights Naruto.

Indeed Kabuto's summon almost seemed more of blackmail suggesting Madara could not refuse as though revealing what was in the coffin would ruin Madara's creditability on some level.

My thoughts have been that Madara's life extension jutsu is the reason behind his possible false identity and mask. This connection probably connects to the Mizukage comment Kisame made. I wondered if its possible he somehow split his soul and anchored half of it in another body and the other half left in the original.

I'd bet money the myhtology of Izanami will be brought into the fold dealing with Madara's death cheating ability. I mean why not they already pulled Izanagi , Tsyukiyomi, Amatersu , & Susanoo what sense would there be in leaving out the last part of the myth.

Of course in the myth Izanami is the one who dies in childbirth so there is a connection to death & the attempt to create life. Some quotes from wikipedia...

- Izanami died giving birth to the child Kagu-Tsuchi (incarnation of fire)

- Kagu-tsuchi's birth burned his mother Izanami, causing her death. His father Izanagi, in his grief, beheaded Kagu-tsuchi with his sword, Ame no Ohabari (天之尾羽張), and cut his body into eight pieces, which became eight volcanoes

- Kagu-tsuchi's birth, in Japanese mythology, comes at the end of the creation of the world and marks the beginning of death.[1] In the Engishiki, a source which contains the myth, Izanami, in her death throes, bears the water god Mizuhame, instructing her to pacify Kagu-tsuchi if he should become violent. This story also contains references to traditional fire-fighting tools: gourds for carrying water and wet clay and water reeds for smothering fires

This story is from when Izanagi goes to hell to rescue his wife Izanami and was told not too look around and goes snooping around...

- Lying on a small pallet in the room, was the source of the stench, the body of Izanami, who was sleeping. Though she was breathing, her body was that of a person who had been dead a long time. Around her head and breast were the 8 demons of thunder.

While i agree with lunchroomclassic in that it'd be incredibly lame if the Madara we know turned out not to be Madara (especially since, amongst several others, the 4th himself identified him as Madara), the fourth page* of chapter 490 really doesn't leave much room for speculation.
Particularly the phrases "How did you do this?!" and "I haven't told a soul" pretty much rule out any of the hokages or anyone not deeply related to Madara.
What's there to tell anyway? The only thing i can think of, as did many others here, is that this mysterious coffin contains something which would challenge either Madara's identity orrrrr... something else he said, perhaps?

So i'm leaning towards it being the real Madara's soul, or the soul of someone who could prove that Madara has been lying all this time, since souls seem to maintain their memories and personalities.**